This pattern, it seems to me, indicts our national policy. It speaks a number of things to our strategy and plan. I'll mention two.

1. It is an exercise in futility to fund one city and not another. We do this when limited monies are distributed through competitive

categorical grants. This will simply move the drug distribution track around from one city to another. Every city is in need. We are all potential markets and sources of demand. Some of the markets have been opened up. Some have not

yet.

2. Rhetorically we say the real solution is in reducing the demand, and this seems to be the strategy of priority if we are to respond to the pattern. In counseling, people are helped to respond to crisis and not to react. You and I have met with the frightened people of cities and neighborhoods. Invariably the initial solution voiced is:

them up and throw away the key . . hang them!.

police."

This is reaction, and understandable.

lock

give us more

It is not response.

We have not put the tobacco companies and their lobbies in jail, but we have reduced the demand. At the national strategy-making level, why

does

MUCH

attention and resources go into enforcement and jails, and an infinitesimal dribble, by comparison, go into preventive education and rehabilitation. George Will perhaps was right when he said of the leaders at the policy-making level: "In democracies, where public opinion must be palliated, there are necessary futilities."

My recommendation is two-fold. First, rearrange the priorities and make monies available. Until now we have been taking money, through cut-backs, out of social services and then redistributing them under a new label: anti-drug

campaign. This must stop.

Those social services cut are an integral part of the (WIC, title XX, affordable housing, etc.). It is not an

anti-drug campaign.

either/or but a both/and in providing funding for both social services and the drug problem.

Use a

Second, distribute these monies through some type of block grant. formula of prioritized need or crisis. Build into the formula accountability. But do not resort to distributing monies through competitive categorical grants. Categorical grants target focused, relatively small, popular, newsworthy, and clever pieces in the interrelated complexity of drug using and selling. In the end, some communities are funded, and some are not. Block grants provide the flexibility for an integrated community-wide task force to implement its community-wide integrated program. Such organized communities know where they need monies to be effective. Provide these monies. Make them accountable, but give them monies.

Right now our task force needs resources for an intervention program for expelled, suspended, and chronically truant kids. These are the potential dropouts

50% in Cleveland, somewhat less in Canton.

Right now we need resources for an alternative rehabilitation program which is tailored to some cultural specifics of our minority population. We are tentative in identifying them because we have nothing to offer them.

Right now we need resources to address the preventive needs of our kids. We need help to utilize the DARE program in our county schools. We need a Counselor/advocate in each of our schools.

We know how to spend the monies and where they are needed as we plan and move as an integrated citizens task force. We will be accountable. But give us the

money.

SENT BY CITYOFTOLEDO

12-8-89 1:03FM:

4192451863→

;# 3

DOWN

TO:

FROM:

DATE:

RE:

United States Senator John Glenn,

Chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee

Carty Finkbeiner, Executive Administrator, CRACKDOWN,
INC. and Vice Mayor, City of Toledo, Ohio

December 8, 1989

Combating Illegal Drug Dealers in Toledo, Ohio

Thank you for the opportunity to present a program concept that is working in high drug and crime rate neighborhoods in Toledo. CRACKDOWN, INC. was formed by community business, labor and church persons about 18 months ago. Our purpose: direct and purposeful, yet controlled and disciplined, confrontation with illegal drug dealers in Toledo area housing projects and neighborhoods. Our experience has been that the three biggest allies of drug dealers are:

A. Not enough policemen on the streets of our
cities;

B.

C.

The media's projection, aided by P.R. persons
from city police departments, that citizens
standing-up to drug dealers can expect to die
gang-land style for their opposition to the
illegal drug activities; and

Citizens thinking that drug dealers will go
away if they (the citizens) simply hide in
their homes, much like the turtle who pulls
in his head, neck and various appendages and
waits for "danger" to pass.

CRACKDOWN, INC. takes a different approach.

First, using a 24-hour "hotline", we gather information from citizens as to where illegal drug dealers are selling and living. We protect the caller's identity by only taking their first name, and they can give us a false name if they wish.

We then check the data given us to verify its validity. We do this by simply observing the address given, or getting background data on the name or address given from neighbors in that area. If we can confirm the validity of the data, we turn that information over to the Toledo Police Department.

Crack Down Incorporated 428 10th Street

Toledo, Ohio 43624 24-CRACK

(419) 245-4046

We then wait to see if that particular address is given extra scrutiny by the police. If the illegal drug problem persists, and if there is a high concentration of illegal drug activities in that neighborhood, or public housing project, CRACKDOWN, INC., then puts in place a program we, call "DRUG-FREE/CRIME-FREE ZONES". It works this way.

First, a trailer is borrowed from a local construction company, and outfitted as a mobile communications center. A phone is placed within, and modern communications equipment is utilized. Cameras and other devises may also be within the trailer, as well as a map of the area, and the ever present coffee pot. Volunteers from the neighbhorhood man the trailer long hours each day, using Block Watch and Apartment Watch concepts to both gather data and report data regarding lawbreakers in the area. To whom do they report this data?

Answer: Off-duty Toledo Police or Sheriff's officers who are employed by CRACKDOWN, INC. to patrol the streets of the neighborhood daily, in pairs, during peak drug dealing times. The data gathered by the volunteers becomes immediate cause for the off-duty officers to seek out and question those alleged to be involved in law-breaking activities. There is usually ample work for the off-duty officers in that the trailer is placed directly at the spot where the majority of illegal drug trades have been going down.

As the volunteers and police perform their respective tasks on a daily basis, several very positive human development functions

occur:

1.

Volunteers and police officials develop a
real "esprit de corps". Pride in the
significant task of successfully ridding that
neighborhood of illegal activities sprouts
and flourishes. Policemen feel that are
really doing the kind of police and human
relations work they were hired to do when
they began their careers years before. They
are not, in this project, simply running from
crisis to crisis, but actually serving very
real needs of the citizens living in the
area. The volunteers find the batteries of
each of their respective lives recharged as
they become valuable allies in the "War
Against Drugs".

2.

3.

4.

5.

Private citizens, seeing the trailer (which in many respects has now become a portable police precinct station) and the presence of pulice officers walking their streets daily, begin to come out of their apartments (like the turtle slowly bringing his body parts out from within his hard shell) and begin to interface with the CRACKDOWN volunteers and officers. Real human relationships begin to build. As the citizens see the policement as their friends, they share valuable data with the officers, frequently leading to arrests in the neighbhorhood.

Young residents of the neighborhood begin to see the police and volunteers as role models. Youngsters begin to imitate and walk down the street with police officers, rather than follow the pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers. The police enjoy being able to be heroes once again, and the kids now have positive role models in their lives.

Finally, the neighborhood regains its selfconfidence and self-esteem. Block Watch Clubs are encouraged, as well as neighborhood and senior organizations. And programs for young persons are conceived. Which leads me to the final point.

Thai

is no more neglected sector of American society today, than its young citizens. Too many are from broken, singleparent homes. Too many can't read or write. Too many have no role models in their lives. Too many aren't even in school through age 16, let along for four years of high school. Too many simply don't have "light at the end of the tunnel". So a drug dealer baits them with $50 to simply stand at a corner and be a "look-out". Or watch for the police. or run a package down the street on the kid's bike. And before you know it, or the youngster knows it, innocence has been replaced by cold-hearted lust for more and more money, and/or drugs.